(291c) Catalytic Process Intensification of Bio-Renewable Surfactants Platform

The global surfactants market size is projected to reach USD 52.4 billion by 2025. Surfactants are the key active ingredient in cleaning and personal care products and are one of many petrochemical products that could be supplemented with biomass-derived materials. Sironix Renewables LLC. has invented a new class of surfactants, called Oleo-Furan Surfactants (OFS), which utilize the unique properties of biomass by linking the function of bio-based furan building blocks with natural oils to provide 100% bio-based multifunctional and eco-friendly cleaning and personal care products. This project is helping Sironix Renewables de-risk their process scale-up for new product development and maturation. The joint research project with Sironix Renewables is designed to leverage the catalyst development resources and catalytic reaction engineering of the ChemCatBio consortium with the surfactant’s platform of Sironix Renewables to accelerate the DOE-invented and DOE Small Business Innovation Research-funded technology toward market commercialization. This presentation will cover the key technical goals accomplished including the development of new catalysts and reaction pathways of various furan-based structures to lower production costs with environmentally benign materials, process improvements to achieve the efficient scale-up strategy of existing surfactants, and techno-economic analyses to guide experimental efforts and measure market potential.